Free Forever His by Shelly Thacker

stood at the entrance to the chateau’s small chapel, shivering and alone, facing row after row of unfriendly faces.
    This wasn’t a great choice—but it was her only choice.
    The animated hum of voices, all speaking that stilted-sounding old French, died down as she stepped forward.
    She wore a faded yellow velvet gown, grudgingly loaned to her by one of the maids who had helped her dress. It was too tight and too short, and more than one pair of eyes dipped to look disapprovingly at her immodestly displayed figure, at her ankles, and at her red silk slippers.
    They clashed with the dress, but they were the only ones big enough that the women had been able to find.
    Or maybe the women had just told her that. She suspected they had done it on purpose, to let her know exactly how unwelcome she was.
    She didn’t have a hat or a veil or anything in her hands. No one had offered so much as a single dried-out flower; she had nothing to hold onto to steady her shaking fingers. Her head pounded as hard and as painfully as her rapid heartbeat. She stood there, unable to move, staring at the man who waited at the end of the aisle.
    This unpredictable knight who hours ago had touched her, kissed her, caressed her in a way that still made her tremble, then sworn he would never do so again.
    This dark lord who despised her.
    This man she was about to marry.
    A shaft of morning sunlight streamed in through the stained-glass windows behind him, bathing his tall, angular form in swirling jewel tones. The brightness only made him look all the more shadowy and forbidding.
    She took a step. One tentative step toward the raven-haired warrior dressed all in black, with a black lion embroidered on his tunic and his black mood showing clearly in his hard features. His eyes—those potent, smoky eyes—captured hers, willing her away, wishing her to drop through the floor and disappear.
    On that, she thought desperately, they were in total agreement.
    She took another step, trying again to think of some way out of this. A few minutes of wild pleading with the serving women had made her realize that she had better stop sounding like a lunatic. She had no way to prove she was from the future—and no idea what people in this time might do to someone they considered mentally unstable. Images of being carted off to some medieval asylum or burned at the stake as a heretic finally made her shut up.
    Everyone from the King to the page boys believed her to be Christiane. For now, she had decided, she had better keep quiet and play along. She had no choice. While she couldn’t begin to figure out how the lunar eclipse had landed her here, some part of her sensed that she might have to go out the same way she had come in —through the window in Gaston’s bedchamber upstairs.
    At least she wouldn’t have to sleep with him. She was grateful for that. He was adamant that he had no intention of consummating their vows.
    All she had to do was get through this for a few days, she told herself, taking another step forward, then another, her throat dry as a dust storm.
    All she had to do was hold out until the real Christiane showed up—which should be any minute now, from the sound of it—and they would discover what a huge mistake had been made. By then, she would have figured out some way to convince them who she really was. Then they would help her find some way to get home. Until then ...
    Until then, she was on her own. She would have to rely completely on herself.
    For the first time in her life.
    She reached the end of the aisle and knelt beside Gaston, feeling the heat—and the resentment—radiating from his large form. The ceremony was a blur, an endless drone of Latin interrupted only by everyone’s impatience when the priest had to repeat each word she was supposed to say, one at a time.
    She barely remembered Latin from her lessons in private school, but she was quite sure one of the words she said had something to do with